Brave New Dimension
by This Is A Boring Fanfiction
Summary: Well here it is, the re-write to my old story. No differences really. The humans and covenant get caught in a precursor device and get transported to the Mass Effect universe. Pre ME3 Post Halo 4. Just wait I will surprise you again.


Hello my loyal readers. I know many of you are disappointed about my abandonment of 'Rapture Meets Olympus' but fear not, I have returned. This story is something that I know several writers on this site have done before. I myself have read one of the; 'The Infinity Effect' If you want a good Halo Mass Effect crossover, read it. not right now of course, but later, after you finish this chapter.

Now, the first order of business I will be addressing will be dead people. I will try to keep as many people as possible alive since I love the casts from both games. Also, several people who have died in previous games will be kept around. Miranda Keyes from Halo 2 and 3 will be here, mostly as a supporting character and someone to offer John advice later in the game. Kurt 051 will also be returning after his 'death' on Onyx. (I loved that book) Finally, I also want your review about whether I should bring back Noble-6 and Jorge and what they had been doing over the past few years (I already have Ideas for 6).

Finally, even though It is not technically bringing people back from the dead, Kelly, Tom and Lucy will be present on the journey and may make some appearances over the course of the story.

The majority of the ME2 crew will be aboard the Normandy throughout my version of ME3 since I thought that the crew was too small for the final game of the series.

Next comes romances or relationships.

(M) Shepard and Liara. (I have actually never played this relationship before. I don't have ME1 so I could not romance Liara. I am relying on youtube and the like to figure out what to write)

John and Cortana. (The technology used for Synthesis will be discovered by our group over the game.)

Kurt and Kelly

EDI and Joker (This one is funny as hell and I want to write more of it. Might be slight jealousy from Traynor)

Lasky and Commander Palmer (minor romance but will be mentioned)

Catherine Halsey and Jacob Keyes (More of a mourning widow thing really. I will have her grieve over his death and there will be some mother daughter scenes between her and Miranda)

These are the pairing and they are not up for negotiation.

And that is pretty much everything I think. Review or PM me is there is something not clear or confusing. I will do my best to answer your questions

* * *

><p>Captain Thomas Lasky was standing on the bridge of the '<em>Endless<em>'. The'_ Endless_' was the first in a new class of heavy assault ship known as the 'Leviathan' class. The '_Endless__'_ (1) was enormous, being a full 10 km, not nearly rivaling the former Covenant Super-carrier, '_Long Night of Solace_', that was present at the fall of Reach but it was still massive. The new class of war ship required a crew of 26,000 personel to operate her at maximum efficiently. The Covenant Super Heavy Assault Ship _'Path of Twilight' _floating in close proximity to them, the great ship also measuring in at just over 10 km.

Admiral Lasky opened up the fleet wide channel and called out to the Sangheili ship master.

"Ship master Thel' Vadam, we are ready on this end. Should we proceed with Slipspace jump?"

The reply came clear as day over the radio.

"Affirmative Captain, we are ready to proceed with with the operation."

A purple, black and white colored portal opened up in front of the group. Thrusters burned through the blackness of space as the ships moved through the portal into the alternate dimension known as Slipspace.

Captain Lasky sat back into his chair with his freshly brewed coffee in one hand and a data pad in the other. He looked around the room to see the crew that was on the bridge checking readings and making sure that their jump had been seamless and perfect. Pushing a button on the command console on his chair Lasky contacted engineering.

"This is Captain Lasky, report." The line was silent for a second before a voice responded from the speaker.

"All readings are normal sir. No abnormalities and we are reading confirmations from the '_Path of Twilight'_ that their jump went off perfectly as well. The mission is proceeding Admiral."

Thomas nodded before signing off of the comm channel. Turning to his subordinates at their desks, he addressed one of them.

"Commander, how are the troops?"

The commander looked up at the captain and checked her reports.

"All troop regiments are ready and waiting captain. Spartan-IV Alpha company is accounted for and ready for orders. our 50 marine battalions are ready with 40,000 men strong. Our Saber and Pelican bays are ready to launch in 2 minutes of attack and our new STRIDENT destroyers (3) can be launched at your command. The land and sub-orbital flight vehicles are ready and at peak capacity if ground combat is necessary. We are green on all fronts"

Lasky nodded, although there was a low possibility of finding alien life in this new Galaxy, there was still a chance and if it was hostile, they needed to be prepared for the worst.

"Major, how are Doctor Halsey and Doctor Anders doing on the science level_?_"

"Captain Cutter says that they are getting along well enough, although Dr. Halsey seems more interested in studying Cortana than anything else."

Lasky nodded, Ever since Cortana had been remade as a Forerunner AI on Requiem by the Librarian, she was better than ever and every scientist in the UNSC and the Separatists, were trying to get their hands on her for testing. Of course all of them were disappointed as The Master Chief refused to give her up to anyone but Doctor Halsey.

Now the AI had made her home with John on the upper levels of the '_Endless__'_ with Halsey and Commander Keyes.

"That seems like something Halsey would do. Keep me posted on anything that she finds. Lasky out." The Captain closed the comm link before opening up another to someone of great importance.

"General Ambrose, how are your IVs?" Kurt Ambrose (Trevelyan), formally Kurt-051 of the Spartan II program. (I will be bringing back various people from both series and maybe preventing several deaths with the help of UNSC and Council/Cerberus tech) He was promoted to general of the new Spartan section of the UNSC, and had been given complete control of it, overriding everyone save for the head of the UNSC Lord Terence Hood when it came to matters dealing with Spartans. The former Spartan had proven to be no pushover when it came to putting his foot down and preventing manipulations. Such was the case when he had successfully argued his point and had the Spartans separated from ONI Section III, Much to Admiral Parangosky and Serin Osman's dismay as they wanted the Spartans to be ONI's personal black ops unit to sabotage the new Separatist Covenant.

"They are doing well sir. The war games are nearly over and the teams have shown impressive performances. Did you bet with the other officers?"

The war games was a modification of the original competition that was used during the Spartan II program and then remade during the Spartan III program. Now the S-IVs participated in a number of combat scenarios which in turn would earn them points for out-performing other squads. The 5 teams with the most points would face off in a five way team fight for the top spots. It had even become popular for the soldiers and officers to bet on the outcomes of the matches. Currently the teams that were leading were, Laser, Crimson, Majestic, Katana and Saber.

"Yes I did, I bet on Crimson team to win the games. Who did you bet on?"

"I didn't sir, neutrality as a figure of authority in their training and all, can't favour one team over the others."

Lasky nodded in understanding. It was true, Neither Kurt nor Mendez could show any kind of favouritism for a single team. This was especially true for Kurt, who was an original Spartan II, and the trainer for every generation and company of Spartan that came after his own generation. his opinion on the teams' chances at victory was second to no one's, even Mendez's, Halsey's and the Master Chief's opinions only came in as close seconds.

"Well, we'll see who wins the games."

"Admiral, We have received full calculations form Cortana and Doctor Halsey, as well as the Sangheili scientists on the '_Path of Twilight' _The journey should take is 3 days to reach our destination at the mid rim of the next galaxy. The auto-pilot is engaged and most of the crew is resting up for the arrival. Will the bridge be relieved form duty?"

"Yes, have everyone back at their posts 3 hours before we exit slipspace. Roland, set the alarms for the crew quarters at 7:00 August 23 2559" Lasky and the rest of the bridge left back to their cabins, leaving Roland to run the ship for the three days that would be needed to reach their destination.

* * *

><p>Kurt groaned as he left the Spartan IV training grounds. He was proud of his Spartans and wanted them to become the best they could be but really, off the clock they acted like teenagers. It seemed that Commander Palmer was still holding a grudge against fire team Majestic about saving Doctor Halsey back on Requiem instead of killing her. The negative of the operation was that Lasky and Majestic were given a 3 month probation for their misconduct and disobeying a direct order from a superior officer.<p>

However once, John, Cortana, Kelly, Fred, Will, Linda, Kurt, Mendez, Miranda, the Spartan IIIs from Onyx and Lord Hood found out they had given Lasky their personal seals of approval. For the Spartan IIs and Cortana, it was because Halsey was the closest thing they had to a mother and she had taken care of all of them in one way or another. For the Spartan IIIs, Saber team and Katana team as well as Tom and Lucy had come to respect her during their time on the shield world of Onyx.

Miranda, who had been promoted to Captain in the wake of her successful operation on 'The Ark', had also thrown in her lot with her mother, and with the support of one of the UNSC's best officers and tacticians, a newly promoted general, and more than half a dozen war heroes, Halsey had been placed on probation and required to stay with Lasky and John until her time ended. Fortunately with the declaration of an exploration into another galaxy as a milestone of the Human-Separatist alliance, and the information that the captain of the infinity would be spearheading the expedition with the Arbiter, Halsey had been thrilled even though she didn't show it.

Now with both her and Ellen Anders, who was recently brought out of Cryo sleep were stationed as a part of the science team that was tasked with studying anything they found on their expedition.

Kurt walked to the door of his quarters and the doors slid open to a dark room. Kurt walked in, expecting the lights to flicker on as the motion sensors would pick up his movements and turn on the lights. This however was not the case as the room remained dark and the door slid shut, engulfing the room in total darkness.

Kurt's eyes darted around the room, trying to make out any detail in the impenetrable gloom. Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end Kurt thrust out a leg behind him, feeling as his foot scraped past soft flesh but did not make proper contact. Ducking down he avoided the figure that would have tackled him before lunging after the mystery intruder. Catching the person's wrists in his hands and forcing them down onto the floor Kurt judged that the intruder was female based on the size of the wrists and the fact that he could faintly feel long hair brushing against his arms. Knowing that there was only one person who would be so brazen as to break into his room and attack him like this he made his voice known.

"Olly Olly Oxen Free... Kelly."

The lights abruptly flickered on, and below the Spartan II lay the form of Kelly II-87, clad in a t-shirt and shorts. There was a light scowl on her face as he once again beat her. But he knew she wasn't really angry, Kelly was one of the few Spartans who did not get angry easily, but when she did, anyone facing her was better off running away and hiding, not that they had any chance of outrunning her.

Kurt reached down, giving his hand over to his fellow spartan who grabbed hold of his hand pulling herself up with him as her anchor. Standing at her full height she towered over normal people at 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 meters). Even so she paled in comparison to Kurt's height, being not only one of the best Spartans to come out of the SPARTAN-II program, second only to the master chief, he was also the one of the tallest, even beating out the giant Jorge at 7 ft 5' (Jorge is 7 ft 3')

Helping her up Kurt remembered how all of this had started; since Onyx Kelly had been trying to get the jump on Kurt, only to fail as Kurt would never be surprised at her attacks and would usually find a way to take her down. She had made it a sort of personal mission to one day surprise him and win their little bouts.

Kurt on the other hand, didn't enjoy the game as much as she did. She would never really surprise him because he had been dealing with Spartan IIIs in SPI (Semi Powered Infiltration) (5) armour for more than two decades.

The strange thing was, now that they were no longer needed as front line fighters, Kelly took her enhanced intellect and her natural ability to command a room, and was now the captain of '_Eighth Hand',_ one of the STRIDENT destroyers that were locked in the '_Endless's_' hanger. Kurt was still a teacher for the next generation of Spartans and the general of the new Spartan division of the UNSC. The phrase 'It takes a Spartan to train a Spartan' rung true in his case. Now, seeing as they had an entire three days before Kurt had to go back to the IVs and Kelly back to her destoryer, they could spend as much time as they wanted doing anything they pleased.

Kurt smiled at his partner.

"Well my lady, the mess hall is serving Italian food in around 10 minutes, we better go now if we want to get any of the good stuff." Holding his arm out to her his eyes glittered with mischief, a look that Kelly had come to love over the time they had spent on the shield world.

Kelly smiled back with an equal look in her eyes before taking his arm in her's and pecking him on the cheek.

"Yes, my dear knight."

* * *

><p><strong>With the Master Chief and Cortana<strong>

Cortana sat down on the holo-tank in John's room on one of the upper decks of the '_Autumn'._ The two were finally finished. The Ur-Didact was dead and the war with the Covenant was over. Peace between the two factions was still tense but with the friendship between the Master Chief and the Arbiter as well at the sharing of Sangheili and Forerunner technology between the two things had began to settle more and more. This expedition was meant to be a milestone. An example of what Humans and the Covenant could do together, the accomplishments they could make._  
><em>

Now, here she was, with her Spartan, sitting on a vessel bound for another galaxy, after being rebuilt with forerunner technology to be Metastable as the Librarian and most other Forerunner AI. If she had been told at Halo 04 or any time before that, that she would be used for anything other than helping John kill Covenant troops, she would have scoffed at them, yet here she was in this extraordinary situation. She was so excited that she was counting down the milliseconds until they exited the Slipspace jump at their destination in the back of her mind and was chatting excitedly to John about what they would find.

"John do you think there will be any kind of alien life where we are going?"

"I don't know Cortana."

"What do you think they will look like?"

"I don't know Cortana."

"Do you think they will be bipedal like us, or more like other animal types?"

"I don't know Cortana."

"Do you think we might find a sentient humanoid species? I would love to see another humanoid species."

"I don't know Cortana."

"Will you stop saying that!?" She huffed, getting up with a slight glare and stamping her holographic foot.

"When you stop asking questions I don't know the answers to." Was his smart reply, causing the metastable AI to pout cutely and cross her arms over her chest while huffing.

"Well can't you just let your imagination run wild for once? Tell me what you think we will find, its not like we'll find another Covenant or something"

"If we find another Covenant, or any other race that wants us dead because of some holier than thou belief. I am saying this in advance; I told you so."

Cortana snorted.

"If you say so." Her demeanour suddenly became almost pleading.

"Please John, tell me what you think."

That was what got the Chief to answer, he could never refuse her when she used that tone of voice. Mostly because that was the tone she had used when she was begging him to save her from the Gravemind and the flood on high charity.

"In all honesty, I don't know Cortana. I don't want to wonder what we might find, that is for the scientist and for you. I am only concerned if they want us dead. If we find an intelligent race over there then that it great, and if it wants to make diplomatic relations, then even better, but until then I will let you wonder about what we will find and worry about what happens if they start shooting at us."

Cortana looked at her Partner, letting his words sink in. In the end she had to agree with the Spartan, finding sentient life in this other galaxy would be useless if it wanted them dead, it would be like another UNSC-Covenant war if that happened.

"Ok John, I understand."

Knowing that tone of voice with her when he heard it John sighed and walked over to her. Kneeling infront of her holo-tank so that he was at eye level with her purple avatar, the Master Chief sought to console his long time companion. Cortana, I don't want what I said to discourage you. I just wanted you to know what could happen. But I also want you to think about what will happen. Keep thinking about what we will find. Talk to Dr. Halsey and Dr. Anders, they will be much more knowledgeable about what might happen."

Cortana's holographic avatar literally brightened slightly at the Spartan's words.

"You're right John, thanks. I'm going to talk to Halsey."

Cortana's image flickered before disappearing altogether. John smiled slightly and laid back on his bed, hoping to catch up on some much needed rest.

* * *

><p><strong>On the bridge of The<strong>**_ 'Endless__'_**

Roland was monitoring all the stations of the bridge. He was please to find that Adam, one of the AIs that was used to run the ship with the help of human crew members was open to conversation, as was Laura from the weapons and R&D section of the ship. Together they had been conversing excitedly about what they might find in this new galaxy and several other AI had also joined in on the discussion until all 8 of the various SMART and DUMB AI on the ship were engaged in heated exchanges. That was until their ship started to tremble.

Reacting immediately, all of the AIs searched their ships for any kind of hull breach or malfunction that could be causing the unexplained phenomenon. The trembling continued, growing more and more intense as the crew members rushed and stumbled to their stations to find out the problem.

Captain Lasky rushed onto the bridge, hitting his shoulder on the frame of the elevator door as a particularly hard shock shook the ship. Dropping into the captain's chair as his bridge members filled in their spaces Thomas contacted Roland.

"Roland, what is going on?"

"I don't know?" He responded, a slight shake in his voice since he had never come in contact with something that could threaten the existence of him and his crew in such a way.

"The '_Path of Twilight_' is being effected as well captain" It was true, from the scanners, the crew could see that the Sangheili ship was also shaking.

"Hold on... we are receiving a message from Ship Master Thel' Vadam."

An Image of the Arbiter appeared on the monitor in front of them.

"Captain, what is going on?"

"We don't know Ship Master. we suddenly felt the shaking and we are currently trying to find its origin. We do know that it must be something about the Slipspace around us since it is effecting all of our ships equally."

The Sangheili leader nodded, his science teams, Huragok and he himself had come to a similar conclusion just moments ago.

"Speak with your construct, maybe it has answers, the knowledge of the Forerunners lies within her."

Thomas felt like slapping himself, getting Cortana on a three-way call he spoke to her.

"Cortana, Do the Forerunners have anything in their data caches that could explain this?"

Cortana's avatar glowed for a few seconds, indicating that she was searching the vast wealth of knowledge she had received from the Librarian, Installation 04, 05 and 'The Ark'.

"Yes. This phenomenon is being caused by a device located here in Slipspace." Cortana paused, her avatar disappearing and being replaced by an audio line as she maximised her search speed by disregarding her hologram.

"Apparently the device was put here by a race that pre-dated the Forerunners." That sent both Lasky and Arbiter for a spin. The Forerunners were supposed to be the oldest living species in the galaxy, dating back nearly 15 million years.

"Construct, what did the Forerunners know of this species?" Asked the Arbiter.

"They were called the Precursors. Apparently they created the Forerunners and the ancient Humans before the Human-Forerunner-Flood wars. The device was thought to be meant to keep the Forerunners and Humans contained within their own galaxy. No Forerunner or Human ship ever found out what it did exactly because ships who found it were never heard from again."

Now the crew on the bridge was panicking.

Lasky attempted to regain control.

Cortana popped back up again, drawing the attention of both Thomas and Thel'.

"Wait, Wait... Captain, Ship Master, I am getting something. I am detecting a wave of low frequency tachyons running through our ships. Those particles are only supposed to be theoretical, not even slipspace should be producing those. I am using our data recorders on the ship to record the Data and send it back to the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists."

The fleet of ships continued to shake until a Slipspace portal opened up in front of them. The shaking of the ships immediately lessened in intensity but did not disappear as the Separatist and UNSC ships moved through the portal. During that time, Data was moving through and out of Slipspace, towards the joint monitoring party on Station Pegasi Delta.

* * *

><p>Location: Unknown Date: Unknown Local Time: Unknown (10:00 August 23 2559 UNSCOrion Arm time)

An enormous slipspace portal opened in the blackness of space, light bent around the glowing purple disk, giving it a glowing white edge. Seconds later, a huge ship emerged from the portal sparking and shaking slightly, not making any sound in the airless vacum as the metal stressed and shook.

The crew of '_The Endless_' rose from their places on the floor, groaning from their rough introduction to the steel ground. Lasky rose from the floor, getting to his feet he observed the rest of the crew as they moved back to their stations.

"Lieutenant, I want a full report, what happened to us?"

The lieutenant got up off the ground, returning to her seat. The screen flashed to life as reports began flooding from different parts of the ship, the rest of the crew reporting damages or problems and asking questions about what had happened to the ship.

"Sir, no hull breaches have been reported in and scans are underway to fully assess out integrity... scans are complete, no hull breaches sir. Everything electronic suffered an EMP burst that shut us down, only scanning, Life support and several other non essential systems are still running. Propulsion, thrusters, engines, shields, long range scanners, weapons and point-defence systems have been shut down and we are working to being them back up."

"Lieutenant, I want all attention and personel focusing on getting out shields and engines up and running, how's the slipspace drive?"

"Non-opperational sir, there's something messing with it and it isn't the pulse, Dr. Halsey, Dr. Anders and Cortana are down there checking it out sir."

"Good, how are the troops?"

"Doing well sir, although the Spartan IVs are pissed the war games got interrupted, same with the Sangheili who were going to fight in the free for all."

Lasky rolled his eyes. When the war games final round was announced, several veteran Sangheili who wanted to test the new generation of Spartans had come over to participate in the free for all round after the championship.

"Right, well tell them to suck it up and get to their posts. Any casualties reported?"

"Other than a few scrapes and bruises, and one guy who was repairing a pelican and sprained his ankle falling, nothing sir."

"Good."

"Sir, where are we exactly?"

Lasky did not want to answer their question, reaching up and massaging a headache he felt forming, with their slipspace drive down and no engines, they could very well be in the middle of dark space, stranded until someone tried to look for them, at least they were alive.

"I don't know... but lets hope we can get back to Earth."

"Sir, I know we can get to Earth."

Lasky smiled, still massaging his forehead and eyes.

"Thats the spirit soldier, now lets head home."

"Sir, I don't think you understand, look out the window."

Taking his hands away from his face Lasky looked out the window, only for his jaw to drop, there, floating out in the vacum, was Earth.

"That's impossible."

It should have been, they were out at the edge of the galaxy, looking into the dark void of empty space, shining galaxies glimmering in the distance. They had gone in the exact opposite direction of Earth, yet here they were, staring down at the blue planet.

"Wait, look at Africa, there isn't any glassing damage, and Somalia should still be covered in glass."

It was true, Earth was in pristine condition, not a single blemish on her. No evidence of anything; no nuclear crater in Kansas, Florida was still there, and Russia and Turkey had lights shining that could be seen in space, not the barren wastelands they had become after the war with the Neo-Nazis and Neo-Commies.

"SIR!" one of the ensigns yelled, grabbing everyone's attention and dragging their eyes away from the blue planet, unaware of the numerous blue lights that were moving through space towards them.

"The '_Path of Twilight' _didn't follow us through the portal, hasn't shown up so far, its not in the system."

Lasky groaned in frustration, nothing about this mission was going well.

"Get us in contact with that ship, I want long range communications up and running within the hour."

"Sir, shield systems have been reactivated and are charging, currently at 7% capacity. Engines are still down as are the weapons and point-defence systems, but we should be able to get them back up within the next 6 to 12 hours. He have Dr. Halsey and Cortana down in the engine room working on the slipspace drive."

The 7% of shielding that had built up was stopped when a hot streak of metal slammed into the side of the ship.

"SIR, ENEMY FIRE DETECTED!" yelled the ensign.

"Shield strength at 6.75% capacity" called out one of the officers at the desk.

"What?"

"Sir... its true, that thing did almost no damage. Wait... Multiple possible hostiles detected, 863 frigate class tonnage, 266 cruiser tonnage 450 unknown tonnage, somewhere between the two, classifying as heavy-destroyer class tonnage. Energy reading are consistent with anti-matter and light kinetic barriers. I advise activation of point defence cannons and archer missile pods A-1 through A-15."

"No. I don't want any unnecessary conflict, we have crippled systems and even if we could fire weapons we'd get destroyed out here, even this ship will buckle under an attack by that many ships. See if you can contact any UNSC personel planet-side, I want to know who had the balls to attack us like this."

"Yes sir."

The communication specialist began tapping away at his post, trying to get in touch with the anyone on UNSC E-band or any other frequency. Unknown to anyone on the ship, there was a separate conversation occurring on the lead ship of the opposing fleet.

* * *

><p><strong>SSV Kilimanjaro<strong>

Admiral Hackett was staring out into space. Anderson was standing next to him.

"We just lost contact with 2 more of our deep space monitoring stations. Whatever is attacking them, they are making a line for earth." On the galaxy map in front of them there were little pinpricks of light that indicated stations. A single station suddenly turned red, before a line went from it, to the next identified station. That station turned red. This continued through 7 more stations until a blue line appeared from the final station to Arcturus Station, and then to Earth.

"Shit, do you think this is what Shepard was warning us about? Is it the Reapers?"

Hackett replied in a grave tone.

"If it is, then we aren't nearly ready to deal with it. We needed more time than this."

"What can we do to stop them, or at least delay them?" Asked Anderson, trying to grasp at whatever straws available, hoping agains't hope that there was something that could save them from the Reapers.

"I've already sent word, the First and Fifth fleets are in a defensive position around Earth, and the other fleets are moving to join in. But even then, I'm not sure we will be able to hold Earth. Begin the evacuation of citizens and give have them all assigned guards. If it is the Reapers, we need to make sure we get as many people as possible to safety. Make sure emergency supplies and bunkers are filled to the brim as will. If the Reapers do come here, we have make damn well sure we're as ready as we can be."

Anderson nodded in affirmative.

"Should we contact the Council. Talking to them and getting the support of the other races' navies would help us against the Reapers."

Hackett scoffed. "Are you kidding, the council still thinks Sovereign was a Geth Super-Destroyer, they won't acknowledge the Reapers until they come knocking on Palaven's door, or Thessia's or the god damn Citadel itself. We have to hold Earth ourselves and if, and I mean IF, we make it our of here in one piece, then we might get the Council and the other races on our side. For now, its best if we just tighten our defences."

"God help us." whispered Anderson.

Suddenly, alarms went off all over the bridge, crew members ran too and fro, trying to figure out why seemingly every alarm in the Sol system was going off.

Hackett walked up against the railing and stared down into the commotion.

"What the hell is going on? Are the mass relays exploding or something?"

One of the officers, an ensign, tilted his head away from his console to address the admirals.

"No sirs, its not the relays, something is happening just beyond Luna. There is a temporal/spacial anomaly appearing in the form of a disk, its tearing a hole in space-time."

Now Hackett was no quantum theorist, but he knew that wasn't supposed to be possible and if it did happen, it wasn't good.

"What's causing it son?"

I don't know sir, nothing like this has ever been recorded in public or classified information, nothing is supposed to be able to generate enough energy to rip a hole in space big enough to even come close to what is happening."

"Could it put earth or the system in danger?" Anderson asked, finally coming into the conversation.

"Not likely, but its possible, the hole could force Luna to collapse into a black hole, or release a wave of radiation that could destroy every living thing not protected by a radiation shield or planetary magnetic field."

Anderson and Hackett groaned, just what they needed, another problem.

"Sir! the anomaly, its breaking through the barriers of space-time!"

Everyone prepared themselves for the worst; a feeling of being crushed by a black hole, the pain of being incinerated by radiation and a hundred other possible outcomes. But none of them happened, instead, what seemed to be a tear in space opened up, stabilising into a disk that was glowing a dark purple with a white edge. Everyone on deck was staring at the disk, wondering what was going to happen. The answer came in the form of an antenna, phasing through the purple circle, followed by the beginnings of a ship that both terrified and amazed the personel onboard the kilimanjaro and the rest of the Alliance fleet as well.

By the time the end of the ship had phased through the portal and the glowing purple disk disappeared, everyone stared on shock and awe as the monstrosity of a ship floated dead in space. Hackett finally got over his shock and yelled to his crew, forcing them out of their stupor.

"Alright you lot, I want that ship scanned double time. In the next 10 minutes I want every ship we have on high alert, prep the weapons on every ship."

Turning to his fellow admiral Hackett gave a serious look to Anderson.

"Get Shepard off world and up here, this is right up his ally."

Anderson nodded and left the bridge, heading to the hanger in order to hitch a ride back to Earth.

Hackett looked onto the ship in amazement, curiosity, disbelief and slight fear. The amount of resources that would be required to create a ship that big had to come from somewhere... and no matter how secretly the construction proceeded, someone would have noticed the mass amount of materials needed to build it disappear. Not to mention the amount of eezo they would have had to procure to make the ship operate would have cost more than a small moon or a large battle group.

Anderson wasn't an expert on element zero, he would leave that area of expertise to the scientists and engineers, but he did know that the amount of eezo needed to power any devise grew exponentially with size. A normal car required about 100 grams of eezo to make it operational, a small frigate like the Normandy, without all the advanced tech, needed around 3,500,000 grams of eezo to make it work, an alliance dreadnought, being just over a kilometer, needed around 500,000,000 grams of eezo to make it work, and the '_Destiny's Ascension'_, the largest ship in the galaxy outside the Reapers, needed a whopping 720,000,000 grams. Beyond that, any other ship would explode from the buildup of heat from the eezo and would not be cost effective to make.

So how... how did the beings on the ship manage to get past that problem, could they be some lost remnant of the Protheans that had escaped the purging of the galaxy 50,000 years ago?

'_No._' Hackett shook his head, the ship had no similarity with other Prothean ruins that had been discovered and even then, a ship that size would have definitely taken part in the war. The strangest thing was that the ship's design was vaguely familiar, as if he had seen it before.

Suddenly, there was a noise that sounded from one of the scanning stations and an officer raced up to Hackett with a data pad in hand.

"Sir, scans of the ship's exterior are complete."

Hackett took the pad from the young man's hand before reading through the content. His eyes widened as he reached the last part of the report.

"Is this accurate?" the officer nodded furiously.

"Y-yes sir. We made sure to scan three times when we first got the results. The ship's main exterior component isn't the really surprising part, titanium hulls are not rare anymore, what is interesting is that the armour has been fused with tungsten. The only reason for that kind of procedure would be to increase heat resistance. But unless you plan to venture near a supernova or a blue dwarf this kind of resistance isn't needed."

The man took a deep breath, seemingly excited.

"Sir, the most interesting thing we found actually didn't come from the scans... one of our ships attempted to hail the ship and when it didn't respond it fired a depleted round for minimal damage at the bow as per regulation. The round bounced off of some sort of energy shield."

Hackett's head snapped back to the science officer.

"That's not possible, energy shields are only theoretical, the amount of eezo needed to power energy shields would rip apart a ship in minutes, even the Reapers only use advanced kinetic barriers from what scans of them we could get."

The soldier nodded furiously, obviously agreeing with the aged man's assessment.

"So what is powering it soldier?"

"I don't know sir I suppose fusion reactors could be the source, but the size and amount of them would have to be enormous, and completely impractical in any scenario. Eezo could be another solution, but the amount needed to power something like this would bankrupt the Asari republics, and the shields combined with the ship's size means that if it was running on eezo, it would have been blown to bits long ago."

"Well lets hope we can get some answers before that thing decides to attack us. Have we detected any kind of weapon on it yet?"

"Yes sir, on the front of the ship there appears to be an indentation consistent with the shape of a thanix cannon or mass driver, the difference is it is much bigger, if the ship tried to launch a slug from that thing it would veer off course long before it reached anything or it might even collide with the side of the barrel, causing an explosion inside the ship, other than that, there are multiple areas in the ship where some kind of missile launcher analogue."

The admiral nodded to the officer. "Anything else that I should know."

The man seemed nervous suddenly, but gathering his courage he spoke his opinion to the admiral "Yes sir, there is something else, based on scans, the ship appears to be floating dead, either there is nothing alive on that ship, or some kind of EMP pulse has killed all systems. Either way, that ship won't be attacking anything anytime soon. If I may make a suggestion sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Sir we should board that ship and seize it, the information aboard it could be the ace in the hole we are looking for against the Reapers. A huge ship with energy shields and a titanium-tungsten hybrid hull, that could help us immensely against the Reapers especially with Cerberus becoming more bold."

Hackett didn't disagree with the man, that ship held untold of wonders that could turn the tide of this war in their favor. But at the same time, what horrors could walk those halls, ready to scoop up his men and reek bloody vengeance against them if it was provoked.

It might even be some new kind of Reaper, an advance suicide unit to soften them up before the main force showed up.

"I want half of our guns trained on that thing, and the other half looking out for the Reapers, if no contact can be made with the ship within 2 hours, we board it and try to find out what it is."

The soldier nodded earnestly, obviously pleased with the results he had gotten out of his case.

"Right away sir."

The man scurried away, going to make sure Hackett's orders were relayed to the rest of the Alliance fleet.

Not long afterwards another officer moved up to the admiral, holding another datapad.

"Sir, we proceeded with further scans of the ship, but the shielding is interfering with our scans and the armour is layered with some kind of blocking mechanism that is preventing scans from reaching deeper into the ship, but there is one thing we can say for certain, there is no eezo on that ship."

Hackett's head snapped to the man, although the amount of element zero needed to power the vessel in front of them would have been enormous, it was still the only theory they had besides fusion reactors, and with their current toxicity, danger and size, the ships couldn't be running on that kind of reactor.

"Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that there is no eezo on that ship?"

The lieutenant shook in fear of the admiral, the man could be terrifying when he wanted to be.

"Y-yes sir, we have confirmed it. The amount of element zero needed to power something like this would be so huge we would be able to feel the mass effect fields on the scanners, not even Reapers can hide their mass effect fields without significant prior preparation and the correct environmental conditions.

The stranger thing sir, is the design of the ship, It's almost human in design, and we discovered a name pained on the side of the ship, the '_Endless_'"

The fleet admiral sighed in exasperation, this thing was becoming a headache of monumental proportions. He really needed Shepard up here to take this thing off his hands.

"Get me a link to the defence council on Earth and admiral Anderson, I need to get Shepard up here to consult on this."

"Of course sir."

"And get me a fresh pot of coffee too, I have a feeling this is going to be a long day."

"Yes sir."

The man scurried off to do Hackett's bidding, leaving the man to practically collapse into his chair, rubbing his forehead with his palms to sooth the headache that was accumulating over the course of this whole debacle.

"Whoever or whatever is on that ship had better be worth the headache they're causing me... and have the aspirin to get rid of it too."

* * *

><p>Location: Unknown Date: Unknown Local Time: Unknown (10:23 August 23 2559 UNSCOrion Arm time)

A deep Purple portal opened in the blackness of space, a glowing ring of energy forming in the empty void. The portal solidified, becoming a pulsing purple with a white edge. Out of the portal emerged a familiar ship. The Sangheili Super Heavy Assault Ship '_Path of Twilight'_ moved through the portal and into real space. The arbiter sat up straiter in his seat as the fog cleared from his mind. The sharp reentry into real space was jarring for everyone and the sudden shift had caused a slight dizzying effect on every one of his crew.

Looking out into the blackness of space he expected to see the familiar shape of the human ship he was greeted with empty blackness.

His contemplation was broken when one of the elites manning the internal ship sensor barked out to him.

"Shipmaster, we have arrived back in real space, sensors and time indicators show that we stayed in slipspace slightly longer than the human ship, still enough to put a huge amount of distance between us and them."

Thel grunted in acknowledgement

"We need to get back in communication with the humans, their construct may have the only key to finding out what that devise did to us. Find us a way to track them."

"Right away, Arbiter."

"SIR!" Thel once again grunted, this time in annoyance, what could it possibly be that needed his attention so badly.

"Sir, look out the view port to your left."

Thel did so, and was met with a surprising sight, a huge barrel like structure, looking like it had broken apart and become somewhat similar to a star shape. That was not the only thing that surprised the Sangheili shipmaster. Around the structure were dozens, even hundreds of ships, many of different designs, although some looked similar to human ships.

"Get me scans on those ships and that structure. Get any offline systems back online and have our weapons systems and slipspace drive hot. If this goes bad, we need to be able to fight and retreat if it comes to that."

Some of the Sangheili on the bridge grumbled at the thought of retreating, that old sense of honor not gone despite the knowledge that fighting against such numerically superior foes was idiocy no matter which way one looked at it. Even the most foolish of Sangheili and Human commanders would not abruptly attack something unknown as soon as they exited slipspace unless it was conformed as unfriendly.

"Shipmaster, the Huragok have repaired the engines, our ship seems to have taken minimal damage; no hull breaches and only a few bruises from the less sure footed crew members, only weapons and the slipspace drive are in-operational and the Huragok are working to regain control."

"Good, I want one of the Huragok to hack into that structure if it can, take a cloaked phantom and head to least visible place on that installation, we should be able to gain some information there, until then, we remain here and wait until the slipspace drive is operable and we have located the humans."

And so they waited, floating beyond the apparent range of any of the ships' or installation's sensors. The phantom had been gone for over 45 minutes and only now was the connection getting through, information flowed through the ship's processors and the Huragok became restless as the new information flooded them.

Suddenly a Huragok that was floating around navigation hovered over to him, clicking and making the noises that were attributed to be the language of the creatures, one of the crew who was capable of translation spoke for the floating supercomputer.

"He states that they recovered star charts amongst the data that our scout ship accessed, there is an anomaly in them, they overlap perfectly with our own, this should be statistically impossible. The galaxy we were traveling to was significantly smaller than out own and the location of both ourselves and this installation is in the exact place that the Halo installation 06 should be."

Thel turned to the officer and the Huragok.

"Is it possible that the precursor device has transported us into some kind of pocket dimension, such as the Micro Dyson Sphere that the spartans were captured inside of, that would explain the existence of this confusion, perhaps this is a precursor installation within slipspace."

The Huragok made more clicking and snapping noises to be interpreted.

"No shipmaster, along with the star charts, it is shown that there is not an enclosed area, the large structure we saw that resembled a human tuning fork is apparently the main method of long distance galactic travel and is referred to as a 'Mass Relay' the scouting team is sending back more data as we speak but from what we know now the Huragok and our scientist have theorised that this is an alternate dimension similar to our own, how similar and how different has yet to be seen."

Thel leaned back into his chair, stunned beyond belief. An alternate dimension? Was that possible?

Eyes narrowing with resolve, Thel pulled himself together, rationalising that there would be time to gape at the incredulity of their situation and worry about the ramifications of this fact later. Now however, his crew was looking toward him to be the leader and shipmaster that he had been famed for being.

"I want every ounce of information you can get from that installation, routes, species, locations of critical planets, technology, anything that could be useful in any kind of situation."

The Huragok clicked and hissed and hovered away while the elite simply nodded an affirmative before following the sentient machine back to the Huragok area to relay information from the boarding team.

Curious, Thel decided to read up on the information that had been retrieved, pulling up the ever growing list of files from what was known as a 'Codex'. Reviewing the findings brought back by his scouts his skimmed over the information on the different species that inhabited this universe. Apparently, Humanity had still evolved in this universe, as evidenced by their longstanding existence. The difference was that no species from the covenant were ever found, instead there were the Turians, Aliens that evolved from avian origins, and the main military race of this dimension, similar to the Sangheili, the Asari, basically blue human females that had strange abilities and were the leading species in this galaxy in terms of science and wealth.

Then there were the Salarians, an amphibian based species that lived short lives but could accomplish much in that time. There were also the Krogan, beings that could be slightly compared to the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae, being hulking in size an savage in battle, but they seemed to have some evolutionary relation to his own people.

Finally there were the Quarians, who he found very interesting. They were geniuses in engineering and scavenging. They could take junk that had long been abandoned and remake it into something useful, much like the Huragok. But it was their interaction with synthetic life that interested him most. The geth were their own creation and yet these Quarians could not control them, perhaps the geth had gone rampant, or maybe the Quarians had been too thorough in programming the geth with independence.

There were also a number of other less powerful and influential but no less present races; like the Elcor, the Volus, Hanar, Vorcha and Batarians. The Batarians Thel found particularly disgusting slavery was a long abandoned practice that was considered barbaric and cruel.

Looking into the star maps of this dimension, Thel noticed that the worlds that were populated by these native species were from unexplored areas of the galaxy in their own universe. Did that mean that they might all roam this galaxy, unaware of each other yet coexisting together. Maybe they could find the covenant of this dimension and warn them of the Prophet's betrayal before any of the atrocities committed by them could be repeated.

Looking into the main files he looked into the 'Mass Relays' that allowed galactic fast travel. The method was indeed convenient, much faster than Slipspace. But the method was constraining, tethering these species to the relays and forcing them to limit their area of expansion.

Thel turned to the communications officer standing at his post.

"I want the Huragok to run all the Aliens' languages through the helmet translating devices, If contact is made I want full communication capabilities with them."

The officer nodded and began typing away at his post, running the different languages of the 'Citadel' through their translators and relaying the information to the majority of the crew.

"Helmsmen, bring us closer to the structure, I want you to send a message to this council and arrange a meeting. These beings could be a resource that could help us find our version of humanity." The helmsman began tapping away at his console and the rest of the crew went to their stations.

Thel waited, eyes locked on the fast approaching figure of the Citadel, as messages were sent out in every form of communication available for the Sangheili to try to communicate with these new species that had been found. Pulling up his personal data screen located on his chair arm he pulled up the Citadel's communications grid to monitor the chatter and see how the messages were received.

* * *

><p>And done, I hope you like this remake of the original story, a general remark in the reviews was that it didn't leave enough time for character reactions to the situation, but I think I fixed that well enough in this chapter. Also, how do you like the separation of the two forces so early in the story.<p>

Should I keep them separated through the next couple of chapters or reunite them early on. And what about the Covenant of this dimension, are they still around?

Find out next time on my next exciting chapter.

PM or review if you want anything done. Have a good day and be faithful readers.


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